Hi Histonetters,

I am aware that there is the Tunel method to detect apoptotic cells. 
REcently I came across an article by Slater M and Murphy CR in The 
Histochemical Journal 31:747-749, 1999. They use HRP-conjugated avidin 
enhanced with tyramide signal amplification to detect apoptotic DNA 
damage. They say that avidin binds with high specifity to 
8-oxodeoxyguanosine and to the oxidatively-modified base 8-oxoguanine. 
They used it in frozen sections post-fixed with acetone or in another 
report post-fixed with 4%PFA.

Anybody out there using this method, too? I am currently wondering 
whether this method could be used in paraffin sections, but I am not sure 
 (I am not a chemist) whether direct tissue fixation with formalin, 
processing and paraffin embedding could make you false positives? I 
appreciate any comments on this subject. 

Dr. Heike Grabsch 
Dept of Pathology
University of Duesseldorf
Germany